In a city whose modern development has based itself on the
inseparability of architecture and urbanism, where not only the plan but the
elevation has been defined and strictly regulated for over 150 years, there is
something uncanny about Barcelona’s developing neighborhood “22@” – the
“Innovation District.” Situated in the old industrial zone of Poble Nou, the new
development’s treatment of the local existent architecture is emblematic of the
relation between neoliberalism’s compulsion towards the new and the contextual
history in which this gambit takes place. Street signs at the base of oversized
shiny towers and weird techno-ecological buildings point towards a perplexing
amount of factory-turned-historical-museums.
The sensitive filigree that characterized early-twentieth century Catalan brick
architecture is often lost in translation to the language of a curtain wall,
either glazed over or excessively complicated and aestheticized.
Few stipulations were made regarding what could take place
inside of urban planner Ildefons Cerdá’s enigmatic octagonal blocks, or “illes”
as Catalan people call them, under the condition that each was to be planned
and developed as a whole. The freedom given by the municipal government to the
district’s creators was an experiment carried out under the aegis of
“innovation,” designed to generate marketing and cognitive capital as much as
monetary revenue. Then again – isn’t that the kind of freedom that ultimately
enabled Gaudí to build his fantastic structures?
Like a rough-worn jewel underneath the current of a riverbed,
the Head Office building of Telecommunications Market Commision (CMT) is nestled
peacefully behind Nouvel’s sex-toy Torre Agbar. Built by Batlle i Roig
Architects, the stout 11-story CMT building is a delicate polemic. As if to
grasp Dürer’s truncated rhombohedron, the building’s appearance radically
changes with every step around its exterior – and throws the superficiality of
its architectural context into relief. The baffling simplicity of its rigorous
horizontal louvers provides a phenomenological dynamism unparalleled in the
rest of 22@. Glances into the geometry’s mystical interior are afforded from a
distance, only to be concealed once one gets too close, at which point the
building’s lightness is suddenly transformed into gravitas. Terraces
strategically placed through the building and oriented towards the sea sit
between the façade and the boundary layer to add an additional element of
depth.
While the typical contemporary demand for spectacular
architecture is fulfilled through the building’s prudently expressive gestures
and boldly simple techniques, arriving at the building’s base fully reveals it
innovative approach. Its geometry is placed on top of an old textile factory
that is located in the center of the block, though unfortunately still hidden
by construction scaffolding from the adjacent empty lots. The aesthetic affinity
between the new and old is formally and
metaphorically reinforced by the louvers that continue over the
factory to connect the two in a swooping gesture. Housing the more personal
functions of the building, such as conference rooms and a children’s nursery,
the graceful restoration of the factory below exploits its spatial
characteristics to stimulate its new function. By locating these more intimate programs
in the factory, the tower is optimized for its operation as offices with an
uninterrupted floor plan that achieves double the standard floor area – while
affording 360° panoramic exterior views.
Defining the form of post-industrial urbanism, 22@ is
predicated on a provisional compromise between the past and the future. In this
context, the awkward feeling of walking down 22@’s unusually sparse streets
alongside construction scaffolding in the shadow of refined contemporary
development has sadly started to make sense. The development plan’s lack of local
programmatic diversity that other parts of Cerda’s plan is are famous for
should neither be regarded as inevitable nor longed for. Despite its tendency
to instill a sense of melancholy, 22@ is to a certain degree immune to critique
by its very fact of being there. In a geopolitical context where urban calamity
has become the norm, the old idealism of the left has seemingly exhausted
itself, running head-first into the wall of the real. Perhaps Promethean
capitalist development or top-down planning should be treated not as a wall to
jump over or tear down, but a building to enter and occupy.
With this building Batlle i Roig Architects powerfully
demonstrate that it is possible for architecture to overcome its developmental vision
and ideological shortcomings, effectively pointing the way forward for urbanism.
While most historical remnants of the old Poble Nou neighborhood in 22@ have
already been dealt with in a definitive manner, this building works towards
establishing an ethical framework for architectural intervention. It does this
by critically calling into question the traditionally
negative connotation implied in the term subsumption
by demonstrating the potential for a synthetic harmony between histories on a
properly architectural scale.
If the places in which we act are ultimately what give our actions meaning, it
would behoove us to conceive of existence as coexistence, and as being as being
amongst things.
No comments:
Post a Comment